Running with the Pack_A Shapeshifter New Orleans Romance Read online

  Running with the Pack

  Her Big Easy Wedding, Part Four

  Abby Knox

  Copyright © 2018 by Abby Knox

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Edited by Aquila Editing

  Cover Designer: Mayhem Cover Creations

  For all the best friends who secretly pine for each other. Just, like, get it on already.

  Running with the Pack

  Part Four of the New Short-Read series

  Her Big Easy Wedding

  By Abby Knox

  After all this time… the scent always leads him back to her.

  Wolf shifter Bobby Jordan is a crowd pleasing party animal, but he’s only ever had eyes — and a nose — for his best friend, the copper-haired beauty, Penny. But a childhood trauma has forced Bobby to keep his feelings at bay and simply do what he must to protect her. But now, unable to bear her perception of him as the monster he is, Bobby decides it’s time to pounce … or bounce.

  Penny LeFleur wishes her best friend and pack leader Bobby would make a move already. Their lives are forever linked by their shared shifter DNA, and he’s always been dangerously protective of her. So, it seems like a no-brainer. Still, he’s spent the entirety of their friendship hesitating, leaving her waiting and always wanting more. She had hopes that all of the wedding party hookups taking place around them would awaken the beast — in a good way — but it seems all the drama has sent him further into his private dark place. Penny’s she-wolf heart might be the only thing to save Bobby from himself.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  About the Author

  Also by Abby Knox

  Chapter 1

  The dirty yellow Labrador Retriever, Sam, pawed the back door of the tattoo place and whined.

  Sam had been hungrily exploring the alleyways; New Orleans was the best city in the world for a stray animal to live on discarded food scraps.

  To top it off, this part of the city was lousy with shifters of the canine variety, and they seemed to tolerate plain old dogs who roamed the neighborhood.

  Best of all, the shifters could psychically communicate with regular dogs, which often worked to the advantage of the strays. The magical shifters always let them know where to find food. Most people have heard of whistles that only dogs can here. Well, this connection between magical shifter wolves and regular canines was sort of like that, only more specific.

  Today, though, Sam was receiving a different kind of message.

  One of the shifters was in trouble.

  Sam pawed at the heavy steel door, but it was shut tight. He quieted down and listened.

  The shifter inside the building was bound by voodoo, a very dark sort of voodoo, and he couldn’t move. Even if Sam could turn the knob and open the door, he would be no help to the magical beast against an evil voodoo spell.

  Even worse, the wolf shifter’s mate was also in trouble.

  From the vibe Sam was getting, it sounded like the wolf shifter’s mate was actually of the feline shifter variety. Sam himself had no use for felines — what self-respecting stray dog would? — but then, who was he to stand in the way of inter-species shifter love, if that was actually a thing?

  Sam got the message loud and clear. A wolf needed help, and had to go find the wolf’s pack for help.

  He ran off as fast as he could in the direction of the water, to find the wolf named Bobby.

  Chapter 2

  Bobby

  Best man Bobby Jordan quietly growled as he scanned the dance floor, taking in the sight of all of the happy couples having a blast at Ashton and Rosemary Boudreaux’s wedding.

  Tonight was going to be the night he finally put an end to his misery.

  If things didn’t work out with his oldest friend and maid of honor, Penny LeFleur, he was leaving town.

  And then, as if the universe was hitting him on the head with a cue, the band struck up Penny’s all-time favorite song, “No Woman, No Cry.” He swallowed, unsure if this was indeed the right thing to do. Typical. His whole life was one decision left unmade after another; his wheel-spinning was of Hamlet proportions.

  “Young man,” said a stern, authoritative man’s voice.

  Bobby looked up from his aged Kentucky bourbon and saw that the voice came from the father of the bride, Lionel DuChamps. “I’ve seen you staring at that girl all day long, like she’s cake on a plate. I just thought you should know, I’m going to see her engaged before this party ends.”

  Bobby glared up at the old man. “Oh really?”

  Lionel continued and plastered a smile on his face while he spoke. “You got a lot of nerve kidnapping an old man. But the difference between me and you is I got something called grit.”

  Bobby scoffed. “You know nothing about me. With all due respect, I think it takes a little bit of determination and grit to get your stubborn ass to this wedding.”

  Lionel crossed his arms in front of him, amused at young Bobby. “You see, son, I’ve got a guest here, a powerful man, who owns a lot of land along the Gulf Coast, and some of that land butts right up against my shipping interests. His son has a promising future, but like you, he is a bit of a loser…adrift…doesn’t know what he wants to do with his life. If I give that punk’s father something he wants—say, a daughter-in-law—why, that would be worth more to him than continuing to cockblock me from expanding my business into the state of Mississippi.”

  Bobby sipped his drink and smirked. “Have you lost your mind, Mr. DuChamps? You don’t own people, ’least not anymore. Seems to me the Civil War settled that matter. You remember that, right?”

  Lionel chuckled. “Son, I don’t have to own people to manipulate things to go my way.”

  Bobby stared incredulously at the old man and laughed. He was genuinely amused. Is DuChamps going senile? “Let me set you straight on one thing. You may be a very powerful man. But nobody here is your subject, least of all any member of the wolf clan. And Penny ain’t your daughter, and this ain’t no dowry society anymore. At least not since the last time I checked. But then what the hell do I know about how you inbred, old-money folks live.”

  Lionel’s face turned red, and he pointed at Bobby’s glass. “It’s not, huh? Well, I paid more for this wedding—and all this free-flowing liquor—than I have ever paid to build an oil rig, so think again about who owns what.”

  Bobby shrugged. “Your daughter’s married, she’s happy you were here to walk her down the aisle. You made your wife happy, too. If you want to try to marry off my friend to get back at me for the part I played in getting you here to this wedding, I’d love to watch your drunk old ass try.”

  Lionel countered, “I’ll have plenty of chances ’cause as far as I can tell, you’re a drunk, cowering little chicken shit.”

/>   Bobby shook his head and said, “You don’t know our history. It’s complicated. And I’m too drunk to try to explain PTSD to a privileged old man who never suffered a day in his life.”

  Bobby met Lionel’s eye. There was a deep darkness in the old man’s gaze, and something told Bobby he had said the wrong thing.

  Lionel leaned in and got close to Bobby’s face. His voice was low and sharp. If words could take form, he could have stabbed Bobby in the throat with them. “Boy, you do not know trauma.” Lionel pointed to his chest and gritted his teeth as he spoke. “I escaped the Sandinistas, barefoot, in the jungle, after my own government left me for dead.”

  Bobby was shocked silent. He hardly knew this man, who happened to be the richest man in New Orleans. He would have thought Ash might’ve shared that interesting detail about the father of his bride, before enlisting Bobby’s help in wrangling him to the wedding by any means necessary.

  “Are you telling me that my buddy Gavin and I kidnapped a former prisoner of war?”

  Lionel straightened himself. “Technically, it wasn’t a war. Which made what happened to me all that much shittier. Don’t cross me, boy. You don’t know what you’re getting into. Things I’ve done would scare the piss out of your coddled, bony little ass.”

  “My ass ain’t bony.”

  “Nah, but you’re acting like kind of a pussy.” Lionel laughed and reached across the table, picked up Bobby’s glass and downed the bourbon.

  “And you’re a drunk, mean old son of a bitch,” Bobby said.

  “You gonna cry now ’cause the old bully drank your drink? Ah, the hell with it. Suit yourself.” And with that, Lionel sauntered off, slightly unsteadily, probably to find the restroom.

  Bobby decided he hated that guy.

  And then, Penny’s favorite song ended. And the moment had passed.

  Bobby looked around again and homed in on her. There Penny was, chatting with some blond trust fund case with a preppy haircut, on the other side of the dance floor. She was laughing and looked as if she was having a grand old time. Jealousy reared its head.

  Maybe he could not have Penny, but he’d be damned if he was going to let her hook up with some spoiled, old-money brat she just met at this wedding.

  Unrequited love was a bitch.

  Watching her flit around like a social butterfly in a silver ball gown like a damn princess, flirting with the social elite and looking stunning, was beyond a bitch. It was the absolute fucking worst.

  Chapter 3

  Penny

  Penny was nodding and smiling and politely laughing on the outside.

  On the inside, she was absolutely trembling with lust.

  Not for the guy in front of her. This blond haircut was clearly on the lookout for birthing hips and a submissive, passive female to take home to his rich daddy to get his parents off his ass about one poor life choice or another.

  No, she was trembling with lust for Bobby.

  She had thought tonight would be the night.

  She had thought he would make his move; but so far, he hadn’t.

  As she listened to the blond boy tell the thunderingly boring story about deciding whether to buy a sailboat or a speedboat—a sailboat has class and beauty, but a speedboat has a big advantage: “It’s right there in the name, hahaha!” he was saying—Penny could feel Bobby’s eyes on her bare back. She knew he was watching her, as sure as she had memorized how he looked: dashing in his morning suit, the sunshine lighting up his auburn mane of hair, his shirt was unbuttoned down to mid chest, his bow tie hanging loose. Her throat dried up at the thought of that chest.

  Bobby was not what you would call slim. He had the chest of a lumberjack. He ate like a lumberjack, too, never could turn down a dinner at JB Chicken, probably never ate a salad in his life. He was broad and strong and physically imposing. He was the biggest of all the shapeshifting wolves in their little pack, and also the best-looking one, in Penny’s opinion.

  Good-looking was an understatement. He was a god. He was big, hot and deeply burned into her soul. No, not burned. Welded.

  These thoughts teased her lady bits to life as sailboat/speedboat guy droned on. “And then Dad took one look at my vessel and said, ‘Son, you’ll have to take sailing lessons.’ As if I’d be steering the boat myself! Isn’t that hilarious?”

  Penny was laughing and nodding but ready to explode. She was of a mind to tell this spoiled brat in front of her to fuck off, but as she owned a small business that relied on rich clients—which was how she’d met Rosemary DuChamps—Penny had to live her life making nice with the upper class. She genuinely loved Rosemary, but most of the time, she wanted to dropkick these silly rich people.

  One thing she never had to worry about was putting on a good face for the wolf pack. They had been friends since middle school, where she and Bobby had first bonded at a field trip to Ashton’s daddy’s flagship restaurant, JB Chicken. After the tour from Jimmy Boudreaux himself, the class was treated to a massive spread. She and Bobby had fought over the chicken neck, while most of the rest of the class had stared, aghast.

  Turns out, that was one way the Boudreauxs determined which school children were wolves, ergo kids they could trust to be around their son, Ashton. That field trip was one of the happier memories.

  After nearly 15 years of friendship, her stomach still did a little flip every time she caught him staring at her.

  She knew the physical side of their relationship was like a ticking time bomb. After what they had been through together as children, there was just no way they could be together without all the painful memories resurfacing.

  Penny could still see the scared, brooding look in his eye at parties when nobody else was paying attention. He put up a good front. He took care of everyone. Everyone but himself.

  She suddenly felt silly in this dress. She felt awkward around all of her beautiful new feline shapeshifter friends—panthers, wildcats, and who knows what else—who had mated with her wolf pals.

  She was the lone member of the wedding party who had not found someone to go into a closet with to make out tonight.

  It was definitely not going to be sailboat guy.

  Nothing and nobody could compare to Bobby. She turned and caught a glimpse in her peripheral vision. There he was, alone at the table on the deck of the boat, his chest and hair and oozing masculinity just out there for everyone to see.

  He’s going home with somebody tonight, even if it’s not me. He could take his pick of any one of Rosemary’s hellcat cousins or nieces. Or aunts for that matter. They had all been staring at him all damn day.

  She turned some more and sipped her Cosmo, and watched Bobby fingering the maraschino cherry in his low ball glass. He looked every bit as glowering and tempting as he could possibly look. Weirdly, Lionel DuChamps was walking away. She wondered what on earth those two had to say to each other. Guys with booze, they’ll always find something to talk about. She had a good mind to go over there, grab Bobby’s cherry stem, and do something dirty with it in her mouth. And follow it up with unspeakable things involving her mouth and Bobby’s other…stem.

  Finally, she couldn’t take it anymore. Penny turned to blond sailboat guy and patted him on the shoulder. “It was lovely speaking to you. Good luck with the rape charges.”

  He reared back, confused. “I don’t have any rape charges.”

  As she walked away, she said over her shoulder, “You probably will before the night’s over.”

  Chapter 4

  Bobby

  He watched in surprise as Penny flounced—there was no other way she could have moved in that giant, hoop-skirted, over-the-top bridesmaid dress other than to flounce—over to his table and asked, “Why didn’t you ask me to dance?”

  Bobby looked up, confused. “Excuse me?” Penny’s chest was flushed. She was nervous. Her energy was making the hairs on his arm stand on end, but in a good way. His inner beast was telling him to grab her and get to humping. Right away.

 
Instead, he let her continue saying what she had to say.

  “You know that I love that song more than I love most people on this earth, and yet here you are. Sulking.”

  “I ain’t sulking, I’m brooding, Penny,” he said with a sulk.

  Penny huffed and rolled her eyes. “I was trapped in the corner listening to that blond haircut yammer on about speedboat engines, for fuck’s sake. I was throwing up the bat signal like my life depended on it—for you to come over with some fake emergency—where were you?”

  Bobby sneered. “I don’t know, you looked like you were having a pretty good time without me. Besides, I was talking to Lionel, and I thought he was gonna kick my ass for the way we nabbed him this morning to get him to the ceremony.”

  She glared and crossed her arms. She wasn’t buying it. Holy shit, she was sexy when she was mad at him. Her eyes flashed and her ears were red. He really wanted to grab her shoulders and suck those hot little earlobes.

  “I don’t know what is up your ass, but you better pull it out,” she said, but it barely registered with Bobby, who was examining her dress to determine which was the quickest way to pull it off of her body.

  Then, a commotion interrupted her speech and she turned to look. The bride and groom, Ash and Rosemary, were leaving the reception, and everyone was forming a human tunnel to send them off with bubbles, bird seed, and, of course, Mardi Gras bead necklaces.

  Penny sighed and reached out her hand. “Come on, time to say goodbye to the happy couple and then we can get out of here and take a break from each other.”